Page 71 of Mr. Darcy’s Fiery Passion

His eyebrows went up.

"Not because I cannot walk," said Elizabeth. "I can. I have walked all the way to the stile this morning. I want you to."

He bent and gathered her up, one arm under her knees and the other round her back. It was nothing to him now. His hands held her, and they did not hurt him, and they did not shake.

She held the crutch across her lap. She put her other arm round his neck. "You need not carry me so carefully," she said. "I shall not break."

"I know." He went through the gate and up the garden path. "I carried you once with hands I could not use. I mean to enjoy it this time."

Her father was on the front step. He had his spectacles pushed up on his forehead and a book under his arm. He watched them come up the path with perfect composure. "I see you found her," he said. "Or she found you. I am never certain which way these things go."

Darcy set Elizabeth on her feet on the step. He kept his hand at her back. "Mr. Bennet. I have asked Miss Elizabeth to be my wife, and she has done me the honor of accepting. I come to ask your consent."

"You had it at the Tillotson, sir." Her father looked at Elizabeth over the top of his spectacles. "But I am glad to be asked. Are you quite sure, Lizzy?"

"Quite sure, Papa."

"Then I have nothing to say against it. Come and see what your Mr. Darcy has done to my library."

"The Tillotson?" said Elizabeth. "Papa, what do you mean?"

He only went in and held the library door open for her.

The room smelled of oak and fresh plaster. Her father's own wall stood at the far end, the old books warped from the barn. The long wall opposite had been empty in November. Now it was full. New oak shelves ran from the floor nearly to the ceiling, and every shelf was packed with books.

Elizabeth walked along it slowly. She knew those books. She had grown up with their spines. She found her great-grandfather's Clarendon, and the Spectator, and Thomson's Seasons with a torn back. Twelve fat volumes of Tillotson sat on the bottom shelf.

At eye height, on their own, stood two quartos in old brown calf.

"Go on," said her father.

She took down the first. It was the Baskerville Milton. She turned to the flyleaf, and there was a name in faded brown ink.

George Darcy. Pemberley.

She turned round. Darcy stood by the door. He was very red about the ears.

"This is your father's," she said.

"It was. Your father's was lost."

"He has spent a week in every bookshop in London," said Mr. Bennet. "He brought the lot down in two wagons this morning, and the Milton in his own saddlebag. Then he asked me to say nothing of it to you. Not until you had answered him, one way or the other."

Elizabeth looked at the book in her hands. She understood now why he had gone to the lane first. He had not wanted the books to ask for him. He had wanted her answer before she knew they existed. So the answer would be for him, and not for anything he had given.

He came to ask me with empty hands. On purpose.

"She will not thank you, Mr. Darcy," said her father. "I warned you."

"No," said Elizabeth. She put the Milton back on its shelf, very gently. "I shall not thank him, Papa. He does not like it."

Darcy's eyes met hers across the room. The stillness went out of his face.

Wheels sounded on the gravel outside.

"Ah," said Mr. Bennet. "Your mother. I believe I shall let you tell her yourselves."

They met her in the hall.